THE WORSHIP OF GOD 

May 12, 2009  

NC Council of Churches House of Delegates

 

Opening Voluntary

 

Opening Prayer 677  “Listen, Lord”  (A Prayer by James Weldon Johnson)

 

Introduction to Today’s Service

 

Hymn 660  “God Is Here”                  Words by Fred Pratt Green, Tune by Cyril Taylor

 

Prayer 681  “Prayer for the Forthcoming Day”  (from the BCP & Lawrence H. Stookey)

 

Hymn 437  “This Is My Song”   Words by L. Stone & G. Harkness, Tune by J. Sibelius

 

Prayer 574  “For Renewal of the Church”  (A Prayer from South Africa)

 

Hymn 434  “When the Poor Ones/Cuando El Pobre”  , J. A. Olivar & Miguel Manzano

 

Litany 556  “For Christian Unity”  (By the late Pope John Paul II)

 

Hymn 444  “O Young & Fearless Prophet”  Words by Ralph Harlow & Tune, Dale Wood

 

Prayer 429  “For Our Country”  (A Prayer by Toyohiko Kagawa)

 

Hymn 521  “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me”  Spiritual to tune, “Sojourner”

 

Prayer 456  “For Courage to Do Justice”  (A Prayer by Alan Paton)

 

Hymn 519  “Lift Every Voice & Sing “  James Weldon & J. Rosamond Johnson

 

Closing Song  “May You Run and Not Be Weary”  Paul Murakami & Handt Hanson

           

            May you run and not be weary.  May your heart be filled with song.

And may the love of God continue to give you hope and keep you strong.

            And may you run and not be weary.  May your life be filled with joy!

            And may the road you travel always lead you home.            (from The Faith We  Sing, 2281)

 

 

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Leader:  The Reverend Charles M. Smith, Chair, Personnel Committee

 

Accompanist:  Mrs. Rose Gurkin, Administrative Assistant, NC Council of Churches

 

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Notes for House of Delegates Worship Service      5/12/09

 

L:  The Lord be with you.  P:  And also with you.  L:  Let us pray, using #677…

 

Today’s service will consist of hymns, prayers, and a sprinkling of comments.  Martin Luther long ago said, “Next to the Word of God is music.”  And some also credit him with having said:  “The one who sings prays twice.”  Murray Perahia, famed pianist, remarked over lunch Sunday, “I cannot imagine this beautiful creation without music.”

Whatever our denomination, wherever our faith was formed, singing God’s praise was probably a huge part of it.  And the beat goes on through many varied instruments in the churches of the 21st century.  We’ll focus later on texts that have to do with social justice. 

 

We began with a prayer of James Weldon Johnson, author of God’s Trombones.  Our first hymn is by Fred Pratt Green, an English Methodist preacher who began writing hymns after he retired and is recognized as one of the best among modern hymnodists.

“God Is Here” (660) was commissioned for a hymn festival 31 years ago.  The tune was popularized through multiple playings over the BBC during WWII as the theme song for their popular hymn program, “Lift Up Your Hearts.”   Let us STAND as we sing.

 

Prayer 681  “For Help for the Forthcoming Day”    BCP & Stookey

 

Hymn 437  “This Is My Song”           The tune, FINLANDIA, is familiar, beloved, and powerful.  And the words, stanzas 1 & 2 by Lloyd Stone, were written between the two World Wars.  Georgia Harkness, American Methodism’s first great woman theologian, and the first woman to preach in Duke Chapel, penned the third stanza to make the hymn more specifically Christian and it was adopted as the official hymn of one of that denomination’s women’s groups.  Let us lift our voices in this prayer for peace.

(SIT)

Prayer 574  “For Renewal of the Church”

 

Hymn 434  “When the Poor Ones/Cuando El Pobre”         Music is the universal language and this hymn offers us the chance to sing in both our native English and the second-most popular language in our nation,  Spanish.  We’ll sing the first two stanzas in English, then in Spanish.  In either language, we’re reminded of Christ’s call for us to serve the poor.

 

Litany 556  “For Christian Unity”  Written by Pope John Paul II while a bishop in Poland

 

Hymn 444  “O Young and Fearless Prophet”                        Ralph Harlow, a Congregationalist minister, wrote this hymn literally on the back of a napkin in 1931 during the depths of the Depression.  He’d already become an outcast in his denomination for an article written in 1924 “attacking the isolationism, the economic imperialism, the oil scandals of the Republican party.”  They’d kicked him off their Board of Missions and put him on a less powerful board that only met in San Francisco and wouldn’t pay his expenses to attend from his home in Massachusetts!  This hymn was turned down by his church, but picked up by others but in sometimes severely edited form.  Stanza 4 finally made it into UMH 1989  having been thought to be too controversial for earlier hymnals.  We’ll remain seated as we sing this hymn which recalls the Virgin Mary’s Magnificat.

 

Prayer 429  “For Our Country”  I’m preaching July 5 and plan to have the congregation pray this beautiful prayer by a great Christian pacifist from Japan written in 1950.  Join me as we pray in unison.

 

Hymn 521  “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me”    From the call of Abraham until the end of time, we are a pilgrim people, always being called by God to journey to new places.  What we all want is the assurance that we do not go alone.  Both Blacks and Whites have laid claim to our next hymn, one of my favorites, some tracing it back to slavery, others to camp meetings, but truly it belongs to all of us baptized into Christ’s church.  The tune is named in honor of Sojourner Truth who fought for the abolition of slavery and equality of all God’s children.

 

Prayer 456   “For Courage to Do Justice”  South African writer and reformer, Alan Paton (Too Late the Phalarope & Cry, the Beloved Country author), brings to mind St. Francis’ Prayer with this moving cry for courage.  Let us pray together.

 

Hymn 519  “Lift Every Voice and Sing”  Written in 1921, this famous hymn which has been called the “Black National Anthem” was first sung by a chorus of African-American school children in Jacksonville, FL in celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday.  One of my favorite memories while pastor of First UMC in downtown Wilson was hearing this song ring from our carillon early in February, the month in which we celebrate Black History, across the near-by businesses, jails, schools, and homes most of them lived in by people who had grown up singing this song of hope and longing and confidence that some day, God’s will WILL be done on earth as in heaven, and we will live in peace as  brothers and sisters, just as God intended at the dawn of Creation.  STAND

 

Closing Song, “May You Run and Not Be Weary”   Worship leaders are always looking for a good song to go home on, and this one, taken from Isaiah 40, does it for me.  Listen as I sing it through, then join me on the repeat as we end our time of worship.

 

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Most of the stories regarding the hymns and prayers are taken from Companion to The United Methodist Hymnal written by the hymnal’s editor, Carlton R. Young, and published by Abingdon Press, Nashville in 1993.  Most denominational hymnals will have similar explanatory books available.  It was my joy to serve as a member of the Hymnal Revision Committee that produced our hymnal and to have had the opportunity to lead worship in our churches and teach worship at Duke Divinity School utilizing much of what I learned from that experience over 20 years ago.  May this service and these notes help you take advantage of this different and moving way of leading your people in the worship of God.

 

Charles M. Smith, Pastor in Residence, Duke University Divinity School, Durham, NC